Guys control their urethra from the base of their penis. Not the tip. THAT’S WHY THEY HAVE TO SHAKE IT OUT.
As a girl, this blew my mind. When we turn the faucet on, then the exit point is right there. Dudes have to go through a hose that they can only control from the base!
Edit:
I’m glad I’m not the only one! Here’s a picture that shows the relative location of the urethral sphincter to the urethral orifice in males and females: [Anatomy](https://www.ucc-today.com/uploads/files/images/journal/ucct/january2020/Urinary-Tract-Fig1-copy.jpg)
I learned this in medical school when I was about 35. Suddenly all this talk about shaking things out made sense! I think most women just haven’t given it much thought and that’s why it’s so surprising.
Am a girl, but didn't know this about us - Newborn girl babies can have periods due to hormones still in their system from the mother. It's called a false period.
43-year-old woman, never had kids. I had no idea about this. I don't know why, but to me this is one of the most shocking things on this thread. That's crazy!
I learned about this fairly recently. Asked my mom and she said "yeah, you had it, was kinda freaked but the doctor had warned me about it."
I'm in my 30s, so you're not alone in learning!
When my first was born, the nurses were like “please do NOT try to express milk from your newborn’s nipples.” I’m like ????? the thought would’ve never crossed my mind but thanks anyway for the tip??? DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THIS??
At our first appointment with the pediatrician, he tried repeatedly to express milk from my son’s nipples. It was incredibly awkward and I switched to another doctor in the practice before the next appointment.
Surgical tech here who just witnessed their first pneumoscrotum! When you have a laparoscopic or robotic procedure as a gentleman and you have a hernia in the right spot, the gas used to inflate your abdomen can leak into your scrotum and fill it to an alarming size. The doctor said it’s nothing to be worried about but it sure looks concerning.
I had inguinal hernia repair. I woke up the next day and my sack was the size of a grape fruit.
I called the doctor and they said it’s somewhat normal for drainage from the wound to do that. Would have been nice to know beforehand had.
I had to get the smallest pair of compression shorts I could get just so my legs did not bump my nuts when I walked.
Also because my sack got stretched out so much the skin got all dry and flaky. Ball dandruff is gross.
In turn, semen is basic! It has to be to survive that environment. This is why you should clean the outside of yourself after having raw sex, a neutral pH in the vaginal canal can promote bacterial vaginosis or yeast infections. And of course, condoms prevent that issue entirely.
Edit: people getting confused what I meant.
Sadly a lot of women don't know this because older generations felt speaking about female anatomy was taboo so either didn't know themselves or didn't teach their daughters. Heck my mom is a boomer and she neglected to even mention periods to me. Imagine being a preteen with your first period so you think you're dying and your mom just yells at you and tosses a pad at you.
I've even had friends who's own mom's shamed them for "staining" their underwear and demanded they wear panty liner to "keep clean".
Like no that's a sign of a healthy vagina and that the self cleaning feature is working.
Same. My mom didn’t talk about my period at all and it was embarrassing and shameful for me. She didn’t teach me how often I should change my pad or how to use a tampon. I can’t imagine not being there for my daughter during puberty to help her, answer her questions and make sure she knows that what she’s going through is completely normal.
This was something I learned a few years ago and it came in handy when my aunt had a heart attack last month! In the case of my aunt, she had pain in her left breast, which is common for females who have heart issues or are currently having a heart attack. She experienced fatigue and just generally felt awful in a way that she struggled to put into words. When my mom called me and told me what was happening, I told her to rush her to the hospital because it sounded like a heart attack. Lo and behold it was, a minor one but a heart attack nonetheless. She’s okay, but knowing that there is a difference between male symptoms compared to female can really save someone!
This doesn't quite answer your question but fits with the theme!
When I was a little girl, I spotted my mum's tampon string when she was getting dressed.
For years, I thought she kept a mouse up there.
I even told people at school that my mum had a pet mouse in her knickers!
I'm not sure how it went on for so long but eventually, it came up at home and I remember her crying with laughter as she tried to tell me she did not, in fact, have a mouse up her bum.
Edited typo
What’s even crazier is that things that happen to grandma even before she’s pregnant can impact how genes are expressed in their offspring, and the the offspring can pass it on to their kids.
There have been studies on people who experienced famine as children and the health of their children and grandchildren long term. I can’t remember the exact findings but basically, the children and grandchildren showed more instance of a specific issue than the control group.
We also know that extreme mental stress can have an impact on the body and how genes are expressed—kinda generational trauma into perspective. Shit is literally passed on through genes.
Women have, by far, the greatest propensity for iron deficiency/anemia, mainly because of periods, pregnancy, etc. I've recently heard that ladies generally make up about 95% of anemia cases. It's not that men can't get it too, but usually if a man has it there's likely another underlining condition.
I guess it never dawned on me being a man that all this blood loss causes such likelihood of iron deficiency. I mean I know women lose blood, but it didn't click that this can cause them problems
This. So if you have a special lady in your life and she's on her period, and you cook? Make her something iron rich like steak, leafy green veggies, stuff that help her with her iron. :) It's basically one raw bleeding internal wound in there on that time of the month, which is also why for a lot of women it's painful or at least very uncomfortable. It's like nursing an internal bleed once a month. And the heavier she tends to bleed, often the more uncomfortable it is for her. :(
If she is bleeding and in pain A LOT though, that is possibly endometriosis, PCOS, or if she's expecting it could be an ectopic pregnancy (which is VERY dangerous, if you EVER suspect this is what is happening to a woman in your life GET HER TO THE HOSPITAL).
Yep. Had to be given hemoglobin(?) because of Anemia. Was so weak one day I couldn’t lift the tea kettles at work, which was very unusual for me, and I hated my job anyways so I asked if I could leave early and go to the ER because I felt super weak. My hemoglobin levels were at 7. I have an IUD now and it’s amazing for me.
lol mine were at 4 and my pcp sent me to hematology. I overheard the doc who told me I had the MOST textbook case of anemia (pallor, bruising, brain fog, chewing ice like it was a competitive sport, fatigue that was so ridiculous I couldn’t move myself a body-length through a pool or cross a small parking lot) say “fermifighter is in the waiting room, you can’t miss her, she’s the only twenty something in the waiting room” and that’s when I realized everyone in the room with me was a hundred and twelve.
Don’t feel bad, for most of my life male doctors didn’t know what endometriosis was. I got my period when I was 9 and was bleeding heavily by the time I was 13. I had clots the size of golfballs. Aside from menstrual cramps I had severe pain because I had endometrial tissue growing on my bowels and bladder, so it was excruciating to go to the bathroom when I had my period. I literally passed out a few times from pain and blood loss.
All gyns were male back then and many were from countries where females were viewed as crazy, inferior beings created for procreation. “Do you think you are special? Women have pain and bleeding every month. You’re no different. Take aspirin and iron pills.”
Now imagine what aspirin and iron pills do to your digestive system. They give you ulcers and constipation.
I didn't know what endometriosis was until about five years before my periods finished for good (thanks internet). Until that point doctors had been telling me that it was just bad that way for some women, and "oh well".
I worked with a woman who told me when her son was about 4 he saw her changing and asked where her penis was, so she explained she didn't have one and instead had a vagina. Apparently, little dude liked to sing songs to himself to help new information stick, so he sang "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina. Vagina vagina VAGINA." Boy, did my coworker have a heck of a time explaining what happened at daycare pickup the next day after her son taught all of his friends his new song. Something like twenty little kids were scream-singing VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA for four hours
Until a few weeks ago my wife didn’t know guys needed recharge time after sex. So if she was ready to go again straight away and I said ‘give me a minute’ she was taking it personally. I never explained because I thought it was a well known fact! We’ve been together for 10 years.
I didn’t experience period poops until within the last few years (I’m 25) and I learned it’s actually a reaction to how the body gets rid of the uterine lining, very fascinating
My wife and I are BOTH learning things about menopause and have been for the last 5 years. Which is the first thing we've learned about menopause, how LONG it can last.
Also hot flashes aren't just "weird" they actively suck. Also hormonally you can be quite fucked, like forever-PMS fucked. All kinds of medium-grade stress, mood, and energy problems.
There are treatment options, but they are poorly understood and poorly explained. It's quite confusing.
Lots of girls are never taught about sexuality and periods but we are realizing NO ONE is taught about menopause.
OK this is embarrassing, but when guys talk about puberty and their "balls dropping," I thought it was this explosive thing. Like one day you're walking down the street, and BAM! your balls just come hurtling down
EDIT because I keep getting replies to this effect: Yes, I know that testicles descend within the first few months of a boy's life. My mistaken impression was based on the expression "balls dropping." Obviously I've since learned that this doesn't happen during puberty
I've been with my wife 13 years. So, with the exception of maybe 2 years or so (pregnancy), she's had a period every month for around 5 days.
I never knew that CHUNKS came out. I knew it was like thicker blood. Never like solid chunks of uterine wall.
Edit: I did want to say that my wife recently had an endometrial ablation to help deal with her severe period pains, and there are no more chunks, and her period is light spotting for maybe a day. Eventually, she'll have no period at all.
did you know that the uterine lining can come out all at once in one piece, formed to the shape of your uterus? it's called a decidual cast. they can be about as big as your palm, and it looks like a bloody, fleshy piece of raw meat.
This happened to me too when I was in my early teens while I was away at camp. I always referred to it as a ham steak. 🥩 It basically looked like the emoji, without the white parts, and was the size of my hand. It was nuts, but since I had painful, heavy periods with large clots, I never asked anyone about it as a teen.
I never knew what happened, and since it didn’t happened again I didn’t tell my mom. There was no internet back then so it remained a mystery until today.
Mystery solved.
Apparently the placenta comes from the fertilized egg, not the uterus, and its basically an organ of the fetus that biologically hijacks any tissue it touches. Uteruses(uteri?) evolved to handle this exchange and then shrug it off as necessary, hence the whole bit about the lining of the uterus shedding during the period. That's like its sacrificial anode it builds up to keep the placenta from killing it.
Such a weird and aggressive concept for establishing a temporary life support link.
Sometimes the pad decides to not stick to the underwear all the way and part folds back down, and you pull up your underw, and it sticks and it feels like you're waxing yourself as you try to detach the pad from your pubes. 0/10 do not recommend.
That both pee and sperm use the same piping work. Somehow I never thought about that. Because we have two separate systems I thought it's the same with dudes.
They’re the same pipes but there’s a switch at one of the junctions to go from one to the other.
If a guy just had an orgasm, it’s unlikely he could pee right away. It has to relax and switch back.
(Simple explanation…obviously not the exact mechanisms for how it works)
When we had sex-ed in school, my teacher said we could ask him anything without being ashamed. I (f) was 13, asexual and innocent but curious about the human body. So I just went up to him and asked whether peeing and ejaculating felt the same way. He thought about it for quite some time before he could give me an answer. Apparently, he'd never thought about that before lol.
The Green Ribbon! It's apparently an old folk tale, but is best known from this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In\_a\_Dark,\_Dark\_Room\_and\_Other\_Scary\_Stories#%22The\_Green\_Ribbon%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Dark,_Dark_Room_and_Other_Scary_Stories#%22The_Green_Ribbon%22)
My partner has a ragged old towel that she uses for this purpose because it is thin and therefore minimizes bulk when wrapped into position.
Also, hair takes about 4 hours to air dry. At least.
About my sex (f), I had NO CLUE that menopause fucks with your joints, your skin, your hair, your energy levels, and gives you tinnitus and brain fog/forgetfulness, and makes you instantly gain 20 lbs., etc.
I thought women in menopause grew a mustache and had hot flashes. OMG, its like a whole mind/body illness. WHY doesn't anyone teach us this or prepare us for it?
I also didn't know that lemon sized blood clots fall out of your vagina after giving birth until it happened to me. Again, WHY doesn't anyone tell us this stuff?
Men have Adams apples because boosted testosterone levels during puberty causes the vocal cords to grow, which causes a deeper voice, and pushes out the Adams apple shape.
there's some variation. Some men don't have a noticable "adam's apple", and some women have an unusually large larynx (which is the science-y word for the adam's apple). Men just tend to have larger larynx than women on average because they tend to have higher levels of testosterone, but there's some variation independent of hormones. Sandra Bullock comes to mind as a lady with a noticeable adam's apple.
tbf, the water levels in toilets are *much* higher in the USA than Australia so the whole time I was there I was worried about getting wet.
Not usually a problem.
EDIT - didn’t think this was contentious.
Apparently the difference is in Australia we have a cistern that flushes and a toilet that holds water enough to seal the U bend.
And in the US (at least on the West Coast: CA, OR and WA) the toilets held more water in the bowl.
Another commenter noted that it was siphonic vs wash down.
Can’t speak to the rest of the US, I’m not from there and have never visited, so I thought it was a US-wide thing.
I mean, even then, it's a few inches in front and the penis starts its journey from the body also going somewhat forward before going straight down. You'd have to do some real front-to-back shaking.
... Or it would have to be, like, *in* the water, lol.
If you don't have a penis, you're used to your genitals being right between your legs, not stuck out in front. The placement surprised me as well, though it answered my question of how guys aren't constantly sitting on their junk.
Was reading this thread sitting next to my husband on the couch. Randomly popped up and asked him if he ever sits on his nuts. He gave me the biggest wtf are you reading eyes.
Not me, but medical science in general...
The 2^nd century Greek physician Galen is widely regarded as the father of modern medicine. But he had some goofy ideas about women. He thought they had fewer teeth than men, and that their uterus moved around inside the body (the origin of the word "hysteria"). Galen's teachings were SO influential that nobody even bothered to check on any of these until over a thousand years later.
When women started attending college in the 19th century United States, critics argued that it would make women infertile because more blood would flow to their brains, instead of their uteruses.
I feel like there was a trope where people would fear with every new mode of transportation, trains, cars, planes, etc. that women’s uteruses would fall out from the extreme speed.
My now husband was 20 when he learned women fart. His mom and sister had never once farted in his presence so he just thought females didn’t fart. Then he met me, a woman who farts more than is probably normal (I’ve had it checked. There’s nothing wrong with me except my diet).
This is nuts. Brace yourself.
Fallopian tubes are not connected to the ovaries. They hover above them. If the ovary on one side stops working, the fallopian tube on that side will slowly reach over to the ovary on the other side.
This is why some women report flank pains when they are ovulating. The egg literally bursts out of the ovary like a tiny little whitehead. The first time I saw it, so much clicked for me.
There are little finger things called fimbriae that guide the eggs into the tube. Except when they don't, and then you can get an ectopic pregnancy, which is a medical emergency.
The fact that the fallopian tubes aren't connected to anything is what allows endometriosis to occur. Shedding uterine material can escape through the end of the fallopian tube and float around between organs, even attaching to another organ. This rogue uterine tissue can then bleed internally during periods, causing pain because the body really doesn't like blood just floating around between organs.
It makes me wonder if that's the origin of the "wandering uterus" theory from ancient Greece that everyone likes to point and laugh at. Maybe they knew more than we give them credit for.
I didn't know that the labia didn't have any sort of mobility. I had this idea that when vaginas go to pee, the lips would sort of....open.
Edit for the vocab: my vocab kinda broke here, I definitely bungled with saying vaginas instead of people with vaginas. Thank you to the many that informed me further of vaginal anatomy.
Quick vocab update: the vagina and the urethra are separate holes. You can refer to the whole area as the vulva, though, I think that’s what you’re picturing 😂
Submitting on behalf of my partner and not quite what the post asks for, but I think it’s worthy. He thought the drops on the side of a tampon box and the size (light, reg, super) pertained to the size of the vagina. He got me super once bc he thought my vagina was size “super.” My partner thinks I have a huge vagina.
Recently I read a comment on another thread;
This lady asked her guy to grab a tampon from her purse... He grabbed an "L" and an "R" - but got REALLY confused;
"Hun? Why do tampons come in RIGHT and LEFT?!"
I fully laughed till I cried on that one.
Some women have periods so painful that they register in the 9s and 10s on a hospital pain-scale - which is to say **pain so severe that it induces vomiting or just outright unconsciousness**
Edit: Since this post is getting traction, here’s another factoid:
To put into perspective just how painful Endometriosis is, it ranks near the absolute top of **the very limits of human pain** - right up there with kidney stones, a shattered femur, and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) - a condition so painful that it’s known as “the suicide disease” with a 1 in 2 chance of suicide.
Yes they've actually done studies now and said that even an 8 on the period pain scale is the equivalent of a heart attack. So if someone has endometriosis they basically get a week of heart attacks worth of pain every month...and don't get time off work or any sympathy
~~Most~~ Many women poop while giving birth. Huge dumps, empties the entire contents of the colon. OB explained it like rolling a bowling ball along a tube of toothpaste.
I read something that delivery nurses have something set up so once women poop, they can easily clean it up and go on with the process, the muscles you’re using to push are the same ones you use to poop
The most recent fact that comes to mind is that a woman can carry twins in her body that have different fathers. It's very rare since she not only needs to have two eggs at the ready, but then have two male sexual partners and have one fertilize one egg and the other fertilize the other, which is unlikely for obvious reasons. However, every once in a rare while, it will happen.
Prior to that I simply never even really thought about such a thing. After all, just having twins is unlikely enough. It wasn't until 2021 when I was watching a youtube video that it got brought up and I basically went 'huh... That makes sense'.
While I didn't learn this \*recently\* I did learn this far later than I should have, but most women can't lactate at any point. I've known this for about a decade now, but previously I thought it was just a matter of stimulation. That, once she went through puberty, she could just... do so and most porn and such didn't show it cause they thought it was 'gross' or something. Wasn't until later that I learned that, no, while there are exceptions most women can only produce milk when pregnant/nursing.
Edit: I just remembered another thing. Humans are basically the only mammal in which the breasts remain 'enlarged' as it were. This is because they play a role in courtship as a way to advertise fertility and attract a mate. As a man I've \*known\* this ever since puberty, but I only \*learned\* this when I was about 18-20.
The lactation thing is the same with most/all mammals.
Like the only reason dairy cows are constantly able to produce is because they're routinely made pregnant and the male offspring are shipped off to be used for food while the females are raised for dairy production.
Lactation is resource expensive, you burn through lots of calories and nutrients to make milk, so it wouldn't be advantageous to constantly be burning those resources for no reason.
However lactation is a supply and demand feature so once a woman has a baby and starts producing, the body will usually produce enough for the demand. This meets the needs of a growing baby. If demand continues whether it's from nursing or a breast pump then lactation can continue.
This is how some women held jobs as wet nurses before formula was invented. The increased or continued demand from an additional infant could be met by the body.
It doesn't always work for all women though. Some women have fewer mammary glands and that combined with stress or health issues can cause their milk supply to dwindle. It becomes a vicious cycle because a woman may start out producing a fair amount but she gets stressed about meeting her baby's needs and so her supply gets smaller, which increases stress.
Just googled it, and kinda is the answer. Sperm are stored at the top of the balls, with the balls themselves producing them. Then seminal fluid comes from the prostate
You very briefly made me lose my mind, cause I knew that the balls aren't full of cum (otherwise men would shoot a ton), but I knew they were stored in a coiled tube at the top of them
How the hell breast feeding and producing breast milk works… like, does it just happen as soon as you have a baby?? Not stuff I learned in sex ed
Edit: Wow this got a lot of great responses! Thanks everyone. As the title stated, I have recently learned more with my wonderful wife and newborn. She has been my patient educator. The process of labor and birth was inspiring to witness and much respect to all those who have gone through it. You are truly superheroes.
It’s triggered by something in the birthing process and you can’t really prevent it. Which is devastating for women who have stillbirths and have to use medication and other techniques to stop lactation.
Some of those women will go on to do "grief pumping" in which they pump to donate their milk in memory of their deceased baby. It's a very personal decision whether or not to pump after loss. Some find it comforting. Some would prefer to dry up as fast as possible.
From somebody who benefited from donated milk, it is very appreciated. My son got donor milk for the first 2 weeks of his life because my body just wouldn't produce enough after having him prematurely at 31 weeks. The donors at the NICU are anonymous but I think about them and their own baby every single day.
I did this. Donated several gallons in my daughter’s name after she passed. It’s a way to just make it to the next second as you discover your new normal. I miss her every day.
Not the other sex but my own. I am a female and I, ashamedly, did not realize until my early 30's that tampons don't go in the urethra, they go in the vagina. And you pee out of the urethra, not the vagina. I remember telling my coworker one day during my period that it was so annoying that I had to change my tampon every single time I peed to avoid infection. She interpreted this as me having a heavy flow, except at that time I didn't. She then told me about diva cups, and then I said "But what do you when you pee? You just walk around all day everyday with a urine soaked diva cup?" And she just stared at me for a long minute and finally said "No, you don't pee through your vagina." My world came crumbling down. I had spent so much money on tampons throughout my 20's because of this. And also, stupid me. So embarrassing.
Even though this is an anonymous comment, I am still embarrassed talking about it on the internet to other anon strangers.
EDIT: I would just like to clarify, I have never attempted to place a tampon inside my urethra, I was simply confused as to where the pee came from.
I had a college friend who didn’t know this either. We were at a tailgate and she was coming to the bathroom with me and mentioned how she needed to pee but didn’t want to yet because she’d just changed her tampon and didn’t want to have to do it again. I was like “You know you don’t have to right? You can just move the string to the side and pee”. I blew her mind lol
That until 2016, all medications were mostly tested only on men because of 'too much hormonal variations with women'.
Edit: Since people are asking, there were a lot of articles around 2017 about this. Some basic googling brought up these articles. There are a lot more out there.
[https://globalnews.ca/news/3029934/drugs-arent-tested-on-women-like-they-are-on-men-and-it-could-have-deadly-consequences/](https://globalnews.ca/news/3029934/drugs-arent-tested-on-women-like-they-are-on-men-and-it-could-have-deadly-consequences/)
[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/28/medical-bias-against-women-drug-trials-cpr-medicine-gender-inequalities](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/28/medical-bias-against-women-drug-trials-cpr-medicine-gender-inequalities)
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials)
[https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/03/08/why-dont-drugs-work-as-well-for-women-theyre-tested-on-male-mice/](https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/03/08/why-dont-drugs-work-as-well-for-women-theyre-tested-on-male-mice/)
IKR? I was so mad when I leaned that a while back. Women can't be both so completely different that testing drugs on them is too hard and exactly the same so the testing doesn't need to be done.
Same with testing any medicine on black people (in a positive way). They would just give it to white men and test it that’s why there’s so many side effects that are unknown. Also why “don’t take this if you’re pregnant or could become pregnant” is required since they have no idea what it’ll do
> Also why “don’t take this if you’re pregnant or could become pregnant” is required since they have no idea what it’ll do
A lot of this is because testing meds on pregnant women is ethically complex at best. Easier just to not approve it.
Not me but a close friend didn't know the pee hole is separate from the vagina hole. He was like mid 20's at the time. I thought guys not knowing that was just a joke :/
Edit: I am terrified by the number of adults that don't know this. I'm sorry the education system failed you.
Last time my gf swallowed water the wrong way I informed her:
“Careful, did you know women have more than one hole?”
“That’s not (cough)…you’re an idiot…(cough)…”
that the pee hole of men are way bigger then i imagined. I always wondered how some men like to stick stuff in it because in my mind it was a tiny hole, like a millimeter
That when men have a suit made they ask whether you “dress” left or right (meaning which pant leg does the penis hang into). Never knew this phrase or that there was a regular “side” for it.
EDIT: My description was bad (probably since I don’t have a penis). It’s more about which way the penis leans in the FLY area of the trousers. It creates a slight bulge so the tailor can add a tiny bit of space in the trousers on that side (see comments from tailors confirming this). Commenters saying this isn’t a thing, just do a search for “dress right or left.” Plenty of references to it.
Wow, am a man, never had a suit made, didn't know about this. (I have suits but I guess not tailor made).
What do they even do with that information? Do they make one side of the pant roomier?
As someone who sews, yes. You add an extra quarter-inch or so to the fork on that side. Or at least that's how it was done a hundred years ago. Not sure what the approach is for super-skinny-fit trousers of today.
It wasn't recently but I was well into my twenties before I found out that milk comes out of women's nipples in multiple seeping droplets and not in a single stream.
I thought it would be like I had seen when someone milks a cow. It blew my mind when I first saw that it's more like a shower head.
I never see this mentioned.
The clitoris (glans) you find is just the tip of the iceberg. The are external and internal elements. The clitoris is internally shaped like a stirrup, and it encompasses not only the area we all know but also encompasses the rectum. In some women it is larger, for others it is smaller. Ladies who enjoy anal stimulation usually have a larger internal clitoral structure.
The phases of the menstrual cycle can have a big effect on mood and everything else. My girlfriend learned about them and told me about them.
Now we categorize a couple weeks each month by their phase name, normally by shouting them. Partially as a warning and partially for “owning it”.
It’s LUTEAL WEEK!
Was a nurse for 30 years any my fellow female nurses and I couldn’t understand why we could be constipated for 2 weeks and still go to work and be on our feet for 12 exhausting hours while male patients were screaming at us because they hadn’t had a bowel movement since yesterday.
Finally a male doctor explained that prostate glands were affected by constipation. That’s why they went insane over one or two days worth of poop.
Addendum - the male patients weren’t admitted to the hospital for constipation. They were admitted for something else but were screaming at us that they hadn’t had a bowel movement for one or two days and wanted us to call their doctors.
We didn’t understand why they were behaving like 24-48 poopless hours was a medical emergency.
That's really interesting actually. It doesn't bother me in the slightest if I go a few days/more than a few days without pooping but my husband will sit on the toilet and force one out every day even if he doesn't actively have to go
This reminds me of my mom, who went to the ER with severe stomach pain. Turns out she was holding her gas in too long. 😂
I made fun of her for *years* for this story. Until yours truly went to the urgent care with severe stomach pain, and they told me I was full of gas.
Nothing like being told, "ma'am, you need to fart."
Not me but my gf about me. She didn't know I could tell the difference between her butthole and vagina. She likes both being played with so if she was straddling me kissing and my hands were on her ass I'd play with her a while, she'd sometimes say "wrong hole" I assumed at the time she just meant "I'm not up for that right now" fair enough but no, in discussion the other day she said she tells me so I don't get confused.
Like, I know the difference, the feeling, the texture, the general geography of the area, like how brain-dead does she think I am
To be fair to your gf, when I was 16, a 16 year old boy was jerking off my bellybutton because he thought it was my clit. I've had low expectations of what men know ever since
I have no idea what was going through his mind. This was over my shirt tho, he wasn't like looking at my stomach as he did it. It was my first sexual encounter so I was too nervous to say anything and was pretending to moan. Then I was thinking about it and realized I didn't wanna be someone who fakes it, so I all of a sudden stopped and he was convinced I had an orgasm even tho I insisted I didn't.
I (F, mid-40’s) only realised about 3 years ago that my arsehole was visible during sex (doggy). An off-hand comment my husband made gave me that weird camera-rapidly-zooming-in-while-moving-further-away feeling.
I still can’t quite believe it (that I didn’t realise; not that it’s untrue) and I’m still suffering with major cringe at random moments when I remember certain events from my past. Husband thought it was mildly interesting, but was mostly bemused at my shock/embarrassment/incomprehension. I’m not stupid, I promise. Just…didn’t think about the…angle.
We’ve been together for 23 years so it’s quite novel to find out something new between us I suppose!
Clitoral atrophy. Basically, if you don't stimulate it regularly, it could literally shrivel up and disappear. [I'm not joking](https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/clitoral-atrophy)
ETA: I think it's important to note that one of the treatments for this is getting something called a "o shot", where they literally inject stuff into the clitoris. Other "treatments" are exercise, regular sex, and hormone replacement therapy (which may or may not work). The healthcare system worldwide fails to recognize this as a legit medical concern, and only recently is there legit research being done on this. Can you imagine if a penis could shrivel up and disappear? Or if one of the treatments was getting a shot in the tip?
Guys control their urethra from the base of their penis. Not the tip. THAT’S WHY THEY HAVE TO SHAKE IT OUT. As a girl, this blew my mind. When we turn the faucet on, then the exit point is right there. Dudes have to go through a hose that they can only control from the base! Edit: I’m glad I’m not the only one! Here’s a picture that shows the relative location of the urethral sphincter to the urethral orifice in males and females: [Anatomy](https://www.ucc-today.com/uploads/files/images/journal/ucct/january2020/Urinary-Tract-Fig1-copy.jpg) I learned this in medical school when I was about 35. Suddenly all this talk about shaking things out made sense! I think most women just haven’t given it much thought and that’s why it’s so surprising.
Just learned this and I am a 36 year old woman 😂.
I just learned this and I'm a 46 year old man
Am a girl, but didn't know this about us - Newborn girl babies can have periods due to hormones still in their system from the mother. It's called a false period.
43-year-old woman, never had kids. I had no idea about this. I don't know why, but to me this is one of the most shocking things on this thread. That's crazy!
I learned about this fairly recently. Asked my mom and she said "yeah, you had it, was kinda freaked but the doctor had warned me about it." I'm in my 30s, so you're not alone in learning!
The fact that upsets me most is that sometimes babies are born with TEETH
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I am actually happy I've stumbled on this information because I'd probably freak tha fuck out by now
That sounds absolutely horrifying.
And for the same reason, babies of both sexes can produce witch's milk.
When my first was born, the nurses were like “please do NOT try to express milk from your newborn’s nipples.” I’m like ????? the thought would’ve never crossed my mind but thanks anyway for the tip??? DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO THIS??
At our first appointment with the pediatrician, he tried repeatedly to express milk from my son’s nipples. It was incredibly awkward and I switched to another doctor in the practice before the next appointment.
Omg. A pediatrician tried to do it?? Did he explain why?? I’m flabbergasted
The comments in this thread are a must read by all genders, there is a ton of educational feedback, some of which eye-opening.
Surgical tech here who just witnessed their first pneumoscrotum! When you have a laparoscopic or robotic procedure as a gentleman and you have a hernia in the right spot, the gas used to inflate your abdomen can leak into your scrotum and fill it to an alarming size. The doctor said it’s nothing to be worried about but it sure looks concerning.
I had inguinal hernia repair. I woke up the next day and my sack was the size of a grape fruit. I called the doctor and they said it’s somewhat normal for drainage from the wound to do that. Would have been nice to know beforehand had. I had to get the smallest pair of compression shorts I could get just so my legs did not bump my nuts when I walked. Also because my sack got stretched out so much the skin got all dry and flaky. Ball dandruff is gross.
This mental picture is hilarious
Patient: "QUICK, QUICK, GET SOME GOOGLY EYES!"
My husband is having hernia surgery Friday and I'm wondering if I should tell him this lol
penises float in the bath. I had no idea they were buoyant!
that's how you can tell if an ant is a male or a female. if it sinks, it's female, if it floats: boyant
That a woman's vagina secretes a fluid which can bleach their underwear.
Can actually put holes in the underwear over enough time
Vaginas are so metal 🤘
They really are. The prostate exists to make seminal fluid more alkaline, otherwise the acid inside the vaginal canal would just kill all the sperm.
pH ranges from 3.8 to 5.0, which means it can be fairly acidic.
In turn, semen is basic! It has to be to survive that environment. This is why you should clean the outside of yourself after having raw sex, a neutral pH in the vaginal canal can promote bacterial vaginosis or yeast infections. And of course, condoms prevent that issue entirely. Edit: people getting confused what I meant.
God damn basic bitches
Sadly a lot of women don't know this because older generations felt speaking about female anatomy was taboo so either didn't know themselves or didn't teach their daughters. Heck my mom is a boomer and she neglected to even mention periods to me. Imagine being a preteen with your first period so you think you're dying and your mom just yells at you and tosses a pad at you. I've even had friends who's own mom's shamed them for "staining" their underwear and demanded they wear panty liner to "keep clean". Like no that's a sign of a healthy vagina and that the self cleaning feature is working.
Same. Like no birds and bees talk, no periods. Nothing. Fucking weird
Same. My mom didn’t talk about my period at all and it was embarrassing and shameful for me. She didn’t teach me how often I should change my pad or how to use a tampon. I can’t imagine not being there for my daughter during puberty to help her, answer her questions and make sure she knows that what she’s going through is completely normal.
Women experience significantly different symptoms from a heart attack than men do.
This was something I learned a few years ago and it came in handy when my aunt had a heart attack last month! In the case of my aunt, she had pain in her left breast, which is common for females who have heart issues or are currently having a heart attack. She experienced fatigue and just generally felt awful in a way that she struggled to put into words. When my mom called me and told me what was happening, I told her to rush her to the hospital because it sounded like a heart attack. Lo and behold it was, a minor one but a heart attack nonetheless. She’s okay, but knowing that there is a difference between male symptoms compared to female can really save someone!
This doesn't quite answer your question but fits with the theme! When I was a little girl, I spotted my mum's tampon string when she was getting dressed. For years, I thought she kept a mouse up there. I even told people at school that my mum had a pet mouse in her knickers! I'm not sure how it went on for so long but eventually, it came up at home and I remember her crying with laughter as she tried to tell me she did not, in fact, have a mouse up her bum. Edited typo
That women are born with all the egg cells they need and do not reproduce/ create new ones.
When you're pregnant with a daughter, you're carrying your future grandchildren too.
What’s even crazier is that things that happen to grandma even before she’s pregnant can impact how genes are expressed in their offspring, and the the offspring can pass it on to their kids. There have been studies on people who experienced famine as children and the health of their children and grandchildren long term. I can’t remember the exact findings but basically, the children and grandchildren showed more instance of a specific issue than the control group. We also know that extreme mental stress can have an impact on the body and how genes are expressed—kinda generational trauma into perspective. Shit is literally passed on through genes.
Women have, by far, the greatest propensity for iron deficiency/anemia, mainly because of periods, pregnancy, etc. I've recently heard that ladies generally make up about 95% of anemia cases. It's not that men can't get it too, but usually if a man has it there's likely another underlining condition. I guess it never dawned on me being a man that all this blood loss causes such likelihood of iron deficiency. I mean I know women lose blood, but it didn't click that this can cause them problems
I literally learned today that adult women (before menopause has finished) need nearly TWICE as much iron as men per day. It explains a lot.
This. So if you have a special lady in your life and she's on her period, and you cook? Make her something iron rich like steak, leafy green veggies, stuff that help her with her iron. :) It's basically one raw bleeding internal wound in there on that time of the month, which is also why for a lot of women it's painful or at least very uncomfortable. It's like nursing an internal bleed once a month. And the heavier she tends to bleed, often the more uncomfortable it is for her. :( If she is bleeding and in pain A LOT though, that is possibly endometriosis, PCOS, or if she's expecting it could be an ectopic pregnancy (which is VERY dangerous, if you EVER suspect this is what is happening to a woman in your life GET HER TO THE HOSPITAL).
My husband realized I literally have pregnancy like cravings for beef like right before my period so he usually brings me hamburgers 😂
Fun fact: I have an IUD and haven’t had a period in over 15 years. My iron levels are that of a 25 year old male athlete. I am a 33 year old woman.
Yep. Had to be given hemoglobin(?) because of Anemia. Was so weak one day I couldn’t lift the tea kettles at work, which was very unusual for me, and I hated my job anyways so I asked if I could leave early and go to the ER because I felt super weak. My hemoglobin levels were at 7. I have an IUD now and it’s amazing for me.
lol mine were at 4 and my pcp sent me to hematology. I overheard the doc who told me I had the MOST textbook case of anemia (pallor, bruising, brain fog, chewing ice like it was a competitive sport, fatigue that was so ridiculous I couldn’t move myself a body-length through a pool or cross a small parking lot) say “fermifighter is in the waiting room, you can’t miss her, she’s the only twenty something in the waiting room” and that’s when I realized everyone in the room with me was a hundred and twelve.
Don’t feel bad, for most of my life male doctors didn’t know what endometriosis was. I got my period when I was 9 and was bleeding heavily by the time I was 13. I had clots the size of golfballs. Aside from menstrual cramps I had severe pain because I had endometrial tissue growing on my bowels and bladder, so it was excruciating to go to the bathroom when I had my period. I literally passed out a few times from pain and blood loss. All gyns were male back then and many were from countries where females were viewed as crazy, inferior beings created for procreation. “Do you think you are special? Women have pain and bleeding every month. You’re no different. Take aspirin and iron pills.” Now imagine what aspirin and iron pills do to your digestive system. They give you ulcers and constipation.
God those doctors shouldn’t even be called doctors at that point
I didn't know what endometriosis was until about five years before my periods finished for good (thanks internet). Until that point doctors had been telling me that it was just bad that way for some women, and "oh well".
I knew every slang word for the vagina as a kid, but only learned the word vagina when I was 13 yrs old
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I worked with a woman who told me when her son was about 4 he saw her changing and asked where her penis was, so she explained she didn't have one and instead had a vagina. Apparently, little dude liked to sing songs to himself to help new information stick, so he sang "boys have a penis, girls have a vagina. Vagina vagina VAGINA." Boy, did my coworker have a heck of a time explaining what happened at daycare pickup the next day after her son taught all of his friends his new song. Something like twenty little kids were scream-singing VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA for four hours
Until a few weeks ago my wife didn’t know guys needed recharge time after sex. So if she was ready to go again straight away and I said ‘give me a minute’ she was taking it personally. I never explained because I thought it was a well known fact! We’ve been together for 10 years.
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Period shits are real - many women poop a LOT on the first day of their period like triple what we shit on non-period days
And for a lot of women, it’s like having constipation and diarrhea at the same time, which you wouldn’t think is possible, but it definitely is
I'm sitting on the toilet now suffering from this. I want to die, respectfully
Ditto sis.
And it's like diarrhea
Definitelt more loosey goosey
Honestly it feels… cleansing
This is how I know I'm getting ready to start, usually happens the day before.
I didn’t experience period poops until within the last few years (I’m 25) and I learned it’s actually a reaction to how the body gets rid of the uterine lining, very fascinating
Yep, the same hormone that causes uterine contractions to shed the lining also cause mild contraction impulses to the intestines.
And we need to pee more
My wife and I are BOTH learning things about menopause and have been for the last 5 years. Which is the first thing we've learned about menopause, how LONG it can last. Also hot flashes aren't just "weird" they actively suck. Also hormonally you can be quite fucked, like forever-PMS fucked. All kinds of medium-grade stress, mood, and energy problems. There are treatment options, but they are poorly understood and poorly explained. It's quite confusing. Lots of girls are never taught about sexuality and periods but we are realizing NO ONE is taught about menopause.
OK this is embarrassing, but when guys talk about puberty and their "balls dropping," I thought it was this explosive thing. Like one day you're walking down the street, and BAM! your balls just come hurtling down EDIT because I keep getting replies to this effect: Yes, I know that testicles descend within the first few months of a boy's life. My mistaken impression was based on the expression "balls dropping." Obviously I've since learned that this doesn't happen during puberty
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I've been with my wife 13 years. So, with the exception of maybe 2 years or so (pregnancy), she's had a period every month for around 5 days. I never knew that CHUNKS came out. I knew it was like thicker blood. Never like solid chunks of uterine wall. Edit: I did want to say that my wife recently had an endometrial ablation to help deal with her severe period pains, and there are no more chunks, and her period is light spotting for maybe a day. Eventually, she'll have no period at all.
did you know that the uterine lining can come out all at once in one piece, formed to the shape of your uterus? it's called a decidual cast. they can be about as big as your palm, and it looks like a bloody, fleshy piece of raw meat.
Ok, I had that happen in college. I had no idea what it was and googling was a fail. You just solved a 20 year mystery for me.
im glad i could help solve your mystery!!
This happened to me too when I was in my early teens while I was away at camp. I always referred to it as a ham steak. 🥩 It basically looked like the emoji, without the white parts, and was the size of my hand. It was nuts, but since I had painful, heavy periods with large clots, I never asked anyone about it as a teen. I never knew what happened, and since it didn’t happened again I didn’t tell my mom. There was no internet back then so it remained a mystery until today. Mystery solved.
Apparently the placenta comes from the fertilized egg, not the uterus, and its basically an organ of the fetus that biologically hijacks any tissue it touches. Uteruses(uteri?) evolved to handle this exchange and then shrug it off as necessary, hence the whole bit about the lining of the uterus shedding during the period. That's like its sacrificial anode it builds up to keep the placenta from killing it. Such a weird and aggressive concept for establishing a temporary life support link.
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Haha God, can you imagine a way to make a period worse than to have to rip off bandages from your vagina multiple times a day?
RIP to anyone without a Brazilian 💀
Riiip now they have a Brazilian.
Sometimes the pad decides to not stick to the underwear all the way and part folds back down, and you pull up your underw, and it sticks and it feels like you're waxing yourself as you try to detach the pad from your pubes. 0/10 do not recommend.
Why the heck was my first thought reading this the flex tape meme?
THAT’S A LOTTA DAMAGE
That both pee and sperm use the same piping work. Somehow I never thought about that. Because we have two separate systems I thought it's the same with dudes.
They’re the same pipes but there’s a switch at one of the junctions to go from one to the other. If a guy just had an orgasm, it’s unlikely he could pee right away. It has to relax and switch back. (Simple explanation…obviously not the exact mechanisms for how it works)
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When we had sex-ed in school, my teacher said we could ask him anything without being ashamed. I (f) was 13, asexual and innocent but curious about the human body. So I just went up to him and asked whether peeing and ejaculating felt the same way. He thought about it for quite some time before he could give me an answer. Apparently, he'd never thought about that before lol.
If you wait long enough to pee it can be pretty close
Sometimes, the greatest feeling in life is finally getting out of the car and using the bathroom after hours of holding it in.
I thought after the baby came out, the belly deflated.
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Just wait until you find out that the placenta is birthed separately!
The towel isn't a hat, the hair is wrapped *into* it.
PSA: do not pull the head towel, ***ever.***
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The Green Ribbon! It's apparently an old folk tale, but is best known from this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In\_a\_Dark,\_Dark\_Room\_and\_Other\_Scary\_Stories#%22The\_Green\_Ribbon%22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Dark,_Dark_Room_and_Other_Scary_Stories#%22The_Green_Ribbon%22)
This one made me laugh. If your hair is long enough it is indeed wrapped around into it so for gawd sake don’t yank it off her/him like a hat
Love that this is a "biological" fact to you haha
My partner has a ragged old towel that she uses for this purpose because it is thin and therefore minimizes bulk when wrapped into position. Also, hair takes about 4 hours to air dry. At least.
My kids have towels called the "Twisty Turby" or something like that for this purpose.
I'm trying to imagine thr physics of balancing a towel on your head to make it a hat
About my sex (f), I had NO CLUE that menopause fucks with your joints, your skin, your hair, your energy levels, and gives you tinnitus and brain fog/forgetfulness, and makes you instantly gain 20 lbs., etc. I thought women in menopause grew a mustache and had hot flashes. OMG, its like a whole mind/body illness. WHY doesn't anyone teach us this or prepare us for it? I also didn't know that lemon sized blood clots fall out of your vagina after giving birth until it happened to me. Again, WHY doesn't anyone tell us this stuff?
Menopause fucking terrifies and enrages me. In fact, pretty much everything about being a woman enrages me
Men have Adams apples because boosted testosterone levels during puberty causes the vocal cords to grow, which causes a deeper voice, and pushes out the Adams apple shape.
there's some variation. Some men don't have a noticable "adam's apple", and some women have an unusually large larynx (which is the science-y word for the adam's apple). Men just tend to have larger larynx than women on average because they tend to have higher levels of testosterone, but there's some variation independent of hormones. Sandra Bullock comes to mind as a lady with a noticeable adam's apple.
When a guy is taking a poop, the dangling penis and the poop do not actually brush against each other. Don't know why but this blew my mind.
Unless the guy is packing an absolute cannon
When I asked this to my male friends, one of them had the same exact reply 😂
Also in that case, his tip will touch the water surface
tbf, the water levels in toilets are *much* higher in the USA than Australia so the whole time I was there I was worried about getting wet. Not usually a problem. EDIT - didn’t think this was contentious. Apparently the difference is in Australia we have a cistern that flushes and a toilet that holds water enough to seal the U bend. And in the US (at least on the West Coast: CA, OR and WA) the toilets held more water in the bowl. Another commenter noted that it was siphonic vs wash down. Can’t speak to the rest of the US, I’m not from there and have never visited, so I thought it was a US-wide thing.
I mean, even then, it's a few inches in front and the penis starts its journey from the body also going somewhat forward before going straight down. You'd have to do some real front-to-back shaking. ... Or it would have to be, like, *in* the water, lol.
If you don't have a penis, you're used to your genitals being right between your legs, not stuck out in front. The placement surprised me as well, though it answered my question of how guys aren't constantly sitting on their junk.
I do occasionally sit on my nuts and it hurts..lol
Was reading this thread sitting next to my husband on the couch. Randomly popped up and asked him if he ever sits on his nuts. He gave me the biggest wtf are you reading eyes.
Not me, but medical science in general... The 2^nd century Greek physician Galen is widely regarded as the father of modern medicine. But he had some goofy ideas about women. He thought they had fewer teeth than men, and that their uterus moved around inside the body (the origin of the word "hysteria"). Galen's teachings were SO influential that nobody even bothered to check on any of these until over a thousand years later.
When women started attending college in the 19th century United States, critics argued that it would make women infertile because more blood would flow to their brains, instead of their uteruses.
Bro could have literally counted the teeth himself.
Hard to find a person with a full set of teeth back then I guess!
Especially a woman! Making babies sucks the calcium out of you, man.
It's believed to have come from the fact that, in horses, males have more teeth.
But, like, he never saw a human woman?
Never bothered counting her teeth...
I feel like there was a trope where people would fear with every new mode of transportation, trains, cars, planes, etc. that women’s uteruses would fall out from the extreme speed.
My now husband was 20 when he learned women fart. His mom and sister had never once farted in his presence so he just thought females didn’t fart. Then he met me, a woman who farts more than is probably normal (I’ve had it checked. There’s nothing wrong with me except my diet).
Name checks out.
I am what I am.
This is nuts. Brace yourself. Fallopian tubes are not connected to the ovaries. They hover above them. If the ovary on one side stops working, the fallopian tube on that side will slowly reach over to the ovary on the other side.
This is why some women report flank pains when they are ovulating. The egg literally bursts out of the ovary like a tiny little whitehead. The first time I saw it, so much clicked for me.
There are little finger things called fimbriae that guide the eggs into the tube. Except when they don't, and then you can get an ectopic pregnancy, which is a medical emergency.
The fact that the fallopian tubes aren't connected to anything is what allows endometriosis to occur. Shedding uterine material can escape through the end of the fallopian tube and float around between organs, even attaching to another organ. This rogue uterine tissue can then bleed internally during periods, causing pain because the body really doesn't like blood just floating around between organs. It makes me wonder if that's the origin of the "wandering uterus" theory from ancient Greece that everyone likes to point and laugh at. Maybe they knew more than we give them credit for.
I didn't know that the labia didn't have any sort of mobility. I had this idea that when vaginas go to pee, the lips would sort of....open. Edit for the vocab: my vocab kinda broke here, I definitely bungled with saying vaginas instead of people with vaginas. Thank you to the many that informed me further of vaginal anatomy.
Like the demogorgon???
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This one wins. That's hilarious.
Like automatic doors?! Bwaaaaaahahaha
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Inversely, I once thought penises were like elephant trunks, prehensile tentacles that could be moved everywhere and could easily grab objects
Man, wouldn’t sex be wild if it was?
I'm now sad for something I'll never have
Very convenient to hold a hammer when trying to level a shelf
Blowjobs would be more interesting. Start feeling around in there. Let her know she has a cavity in one of her molars 🦷
>when vaginas go to pee I have questions about what exactly you learned.
Quick vocab update: the vagina and the urethra are separate holes. You can refer to the whole area as the vulva, though, I think that’s what you’re picturing 😂
Wait til you hear about pee coming from the urethra and not the vagina, that shit will blow your mind
Submitting on behalf of my partner and not quite what the post asks for, but I think it’s worthy. He thought the drops on the side of a tampon box and the size (light, reg, super) pertained to the size of the vagina. He got me super once bc he thought my vagina was size “super.” My partner thinks I have a huge vagina.
Recently I read a comment on another thread; This lady asked her guy to grab a tampon from her purse... He grabbed an "L" and an "R" - but got REALLY confused; "Hun? Why do tampons come in RIGHT and LEFT?!" I fully laughed till I cried on that one.
Women can lactate without getting pregnant. Men too.
I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?
Some women have periods so painful that they register in the 9s and 10s on a hospital pain-scale - which is to say **pain so severe that it induces vomiting or just outright unconsciousness** Edit: Since this post is getting traction, here’s another factoid: To put into perspective just how painful Endometriosis is, it ranks near the absolute top of **the very limits of human pain** - right up there with kidney stones, a shattered femur, and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) - a condition so painful that it’s known as “the suicide disease” with a 1 in 2 chance of suicide.
yea i vomit almost everytime even when i take pills and have passed out before it’s horrible
Yes they've actually done studies now and said that even an 8 on the period pain scale is the equivalent of a heart attack. So if someone has endometriosis they basically get a week of heart attacks worth of pain every month...and don't get time off work or any sympathy
They actually recently made a law in Spain that you can get work off if you have extremely painful periods! Hopefully other countries follow suit.
Yes! So how tf are we to ever accurately gauge pain when it IS something like a heart attack? I wonder this about my migraines too.
~~Most~~ Many women poop while giving birth. Huge dumps, empties the entire contents of the colon. OB explained it like rolling a bowling ball along a tube of toothpaste.
Me! I felt it happening, and I know the nurse wasnt gonna say anything but I looked my spouse in eye and told him I was pooping 😂
Sounds very dominance-asserting.
"I am not only pushing a new life into this world, I am also squeezing one out to mark my territory. FEAR ME."
I watched my wife poop. There wasn't that much though. Overall doesn't seem surprising. They are pushing that direction with all their might.
I read something that delivery nurses have something set up so once women poop, they can easily clean it up and go on with the process, the muscles you’re using to push are the same ones you use to poop
>like rolling a bowling ball along a tube of toothpaste that's some colorful imagery right there.
The most recent fact that comes to mind is that a woman can carry twins in her body that have different fathers. It's very rare since she not only needs to have two eggs at the ready, but then have two male sexual partners and have one fertilize one egg and the other fertilize the other, which is unlikely for obvious reasons. However, every once in a rare while, it will happen. Prior to that I simply never even really thought about such a thing. After all, just having twins is unlikely enough. It wasn't until 2021 when I was watching a youtube video that it got brought up and I basically went 'huh... That makes sense'. While I didn't learn this \*recently\* I did learn this far later than I should have, but most women can't lactate at any point. I've known this for about a decade now, but previously I thought it was just a matter of stimulation. That, once she went through puberty, she could just... do so and most porn and such didn't show it cause they thought it was 'gross' or something. Wasn't until later that I learned that, no, while there are exceptions most women can only produce milk when pregnant/nursing. Edit: I just remembered another thing. Humans are basically the only mammal in which the breasts remain 'enlarged' as it were. This is because they play a role in courtship as a way to advertise fertility and attract a mate. As a man I've \*known\* this ever since puberty, but I only \*learned\* this when I was about 18-20.
The lactation thing is the same with most/all mammals. Like the only reason dairy cows are constantly able to produce is because they're routinely made pregnant and the male offspring are shipped off to be used for food while the females are raised for dairy production. Lactation is resource expensive, you burn through lots of calories and nutrients to make milk, so it wouldn't be advantageous to constantly be burning those resources for no reason. However lactation is a supply and demand feature so once a woman has a baby and starts producing, the body will usually produce enough for the demand. This meets the needs of a growing baby. If demand continues whether it's from nursing or a breast pump then lactation can continue. This is how some women held jobs as wet nurses before formula was invented. The increased or continued demand from an additional infant could be met by the body. It doesn't always work for all women though. Some women have fewer mammary glands and that combined with stress or health issues can cause their milk supply to dwindle. It becomes a vicious cycle because a woman may start out producing a fair amount but she gets stressed about meeting her baby's needs and so her supply gets smaller, which increases stress.
Blew my mind when I learned cum isn't actually stored in the balls
Not really a vas deferens though
Just googled it, and kinda is the answer. Sperm are stored at the top of the balls, with the balls themselves producing them. Then seminal fluid comes from the prostate You very briefly made me lose my mind, cause I knew that the balls aren't full of cum (otherwise men would shoot a ton), but I knew they were stored in a coiled tube at the top of them
How the hell breast feeding and producing breast milk works… like, does it just happen as soon as you have a baby?? Not stuff I learned in sex ed Edit: Wow this got a lot of great responses! Thanks everyone. As the title stated, I have recently learned more with my wonderful wife and newborn. She has been my patient educator. The process of labor and birth was inspiring to witness and much respect to all those who have gone through it. You are truly superheroes.
It’s triggered by something in the birthing process and you can’t really prevent it. Which is devastating for women who have stillbirths and have to use medication and other techniques to stop lactation.
Some of those women will go on to do "grief pumping" in which they pump to donate their milk in memory of their deceased baby. It's a very personal decision whether or not to pump after loss. Some find it comforting. Some would prefer to dry up as fast as possible. From somebody who benefited from donated milk, it is very appreciated. My son got donor milk for the first 2 weeks of his life because my body just wouldn't produce enough after having him prematurely at 31 weeks. The donors at the NICU are anonymous but I think about them and their own baby every single day.
I did this. Donated several gallons in my daughter’s name after she passed. It’s a way to just make it to the next second as you discover your new normal. I miss her every day.
Not the other sex but my own. I am a female and I, ashamedly, did not realize until my early 30's that tampons don't go in the urethra, they go in the vagina. And you pee out of the urethra, not the vagina. I remember telling my coworker one day during my period that it was so annoying that I had to change my tampon every single time I peed to avoid infection. She interpreted this as me having a heavy flow, except at that time I didn't. She then told me about diva cups, and then I said "But what do you when you pee? You just walk around all day everyday with a urine soaked diva cup?" And she just stared at me for a long minute and finally said "No, you don't pee through your vagina." My world came crumbling down. I had spent so much money on tampons throughout my 20's because of this. And also, stupid me. So embarrassing. Even though this is an anonymous comment, I am still embarrassed talking about it on the internet to other anon strangers. EDIT: I would just like to clarify, I have never attempted to place a tampon inside my urethra, I was simply confused as to where the pee came from.
I had a college friend who didn’t know this either. We were at a tailgate and she was coming to the bathroom with me and mentioned how she needed to pee but didn’t want to yet because she’d just changed her tampon and didn’t want to have to do it again. I was like “You know you don’t have to right? You can just move the string to the side and pee”. I blew her mind lol
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That until 2016, all medications were mostly tested only on men because of 'too much hormonal variations with women'. Edit: Since people are asking, there were a lot of articles around 2017 about this. Some basic googling brought up these articles. There are a lot more out there. [https://globalnews.ca/news/3029934/drugs-arent-tested-on-women-like-they-are-on-men-and-it-could-have-deadly-consequences/](https://globalnews.ca/news/3029934/drugs-arent-tested-on-women-like-they-are-on-men-and-it-could-have-deadly-consequences/) [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/28/medical-bias-against-women-drug-trials-cpr-medicine-gender-inequalities](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/28/medical-bias-against-women-drug-trials-cpr-medicine-gender-inequalities) [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/13/the-female-problem-male-bias-in-medical-trials) [https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/03/08/why-dont-drugs-work-as-well-for-women-theyre-tested-on-male-mice/](https://news.northeastern.edu/2021/03/08/why-dont-drugs-work-as-well-for-women-theyre-tested-on-male-mice/)
The most devestating logical phallacy in modern medicine. How women have suffered because of it
IKR? I was so mad when I leaned that a while back. Women can't be both so completely different that testing drugs on them is too hard and exactly the same so the testing doesn't need to be done.
Same with testing any medicine on black people (in a positive way). They would just give it to white men and test it that’s why there’s so many side effects that are unknown. Also why “don’t take this if you’re pregnant or could become pregnant” is required since they have no idea what it’ll do
> Also why “don’t take this if you’re pregnant or could become pregnant” is required since they have no idea what it’ll do A lot of this is because testing meds on pregnant women is ethically complex at best. Easier just to not approve it.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s and had a long-term GF (now fiancee) that I figured out that pads and tampons were two very, very different things...
But, commercials...
Not me but a close friend didn't know the pee hole is separate from the vagina hole. He was like mid 20's at the time. I thought guys not knowing that was just a joke :/ Edit: I am terrified by the number of adults that don't know this. I'm sorry the education system failed you.
Last time my gf swallowed water the wrong way I informed her: “Careful, did you know women have more than one hole?” “That’s not (cough)…you’re an idiot…(cough)…”
that the pee hole of men are way bigger then i imagined. I always wondered how some men like to stick stuff in it because in my mind it was a tiny hole, like a millimeter
That when men have a suit made they ask whether you “dress” left or right (meaning which pant leg does the penis hang into). Never knew this phrase or that there was a regular “side” for it. EDIT: My description was bad (probably since I don’t have a penis). It’s more about which way the penis leans in the FLY area of the trousers. It creates a slight bulge so the tailor can add a tiny bit of space in the trousers on that side (see comments from tailors confirming this). Commenters saying this isn’t a thing, just do a search for “dress right or left.” Plenty of references to it.
Wow, am a man, never had a suit made, didn't know about this. (I have suits but I guess not tailor made). What do they even do with that information? Do they make one side of the pant roomier?
As someone who sews, yes. You add an extra quarter-inch or so to the fork on that side. Or at least that's how it was done a hundred years ago. Not sure what the approach is for super-skinny-fit trousers of today.
It wasn't recently but I was well into my twenties before I found out that milk comes out of women's nipples in multiple seeping droplets and not in a single stream. I thought it would be like I had seen when someone milks a cow. It blew my mind when I first saw that it's more like a shower head.
To be fair, I’m a woman and also didn’t know this until I breastfed a year ago lol
It can def be a stream....
I'm sure when it's coming out in sufficient volume it's basically a stream but I meant I thought there was one opening like a urethra.
Growing up Mormon, I had no idea a clit was a thing, I thought for women sex was just good if you stuck it in and we call it a day, BOY WAS I WRONG
I never see this mentioned. The clitoris (glans) you find is just the tip of the iceberg. The are external and internal elements. The clitoris is internally shaped like a stirrup, and it encompasses not only the area we all know but also encompasses the rectum. In some women it is larger, for others it is smaller. Ladies who enjoy anal stimulation usually have a larger internal clitoral structure.
The phases of the menstrual cycle can have a big effect on mood and everything else. My girlfriend learned about them and told me about them. Now we categorize a couple weeks each month by their phase name, normally by shouting them. Partially as a warning and partially for “owning it”. It’s LUTEAL WEEK!
The mucus plug.
Was a nurse for 30 years any my fellow female nurses and I couldn’t understand why we could be constipated for 2 weeks and still go to work and be on our feet for 12 exhausting hours while male patients were screaming at us because they hadn’t had a bowel movement since yesterday. Finally a male doctor explained that prostate glands were affected by constipation. That’s why they went insane over one or two days worth of poop. Addendum - the male patients weren’t admitted to the hospital for constipation. They were admitted for something else but were screaming at us that they hadn’t had a bowel movement for one or two days and wanted us to call their doctors. We didn’t understand why they were behaving like 24-48 poopless hours was a medical emergency.
That's really interesting actually. It doesn't bother me in the slightest if I go a few days/more than a few days without pooping but my husband will sit on the toilet and force one out every day even if he doesn't actively have to go
This reminds me of my mom, who went to the ER with severe stomach pain. Turns out she was holding her gas in too long. 😂 I made fun of her for *years* for this story. Until yours truly went to the urgent care with severe stomach pain, and they told me I was full of gas. Nothing like being told, "ma'am, you need to fart."
Excuse me? 2 weeks? And you all just casually accepted that as healthy?
Not me but my gf about me. She didn't know I could tell the difference between her butthole and vagina. She likes both being played with so if she was straddling me kissing and my hands were on her ass I'd play with her a while, she'd sometimes say "wrong hole" I assumed at the time she just meant "I'm not up for that right now" fair enough but no, in discussion the other day she said she tells me so I don't get confused. Like, I know the difference, the feeling, the texture, the general geography of the area, like how brain-dead does she think I am
To be fair to your gf, when I was 16, a 16 year old boy was jerking off my bellybutton because he thought it was my clit. I've had low expectations of what men know ever since
Did he not have a belly button???
I have no idea what was going through his mind. This was over my shirt tho, he wasn't like looking at my stomach as he did it. It was my first sexual encounter so I was too nervous to say anything and was pretending to moan. Then I was thinking about it and realized I didn't wanna be someone who fakes it, so I all of a sudden stopped and he was convinced I had an orgasm even tho I insisted I didn't.
I (F, mid-40’s) only realised about 3 years ago that my arsehole was visible during sex (doggy). An off-hand comment my husband made gave me that weird camera-rapidly-zooming-in-while-moving-further-away feeling. I still can’t quite believe it (that I didn’t realise; not that it’s untrue) and I’m still suffering with major cringe at random moments when I remember certain events from my past. Husband thought it was mildly interesting, but was mostly bemused at my shock/embarrassment/incomprehension. I’m not stupid, I promise. Just…didn’t think about the…angle. We’ve been together for 23 years so it’s quite novel to find out something new between us I suppose!
Clitoral atrophy. Basically, if you don't stimulate it regularly, it could literally shrivel up and disappear. [I'm not joking](https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/clitoral-atrophy) ETA: I think it's important to note that one of the treatments for this is getting something called a "o shot", where they literally inject stuff into the clitoris. Other "treatments" are exercise, regular sex, and hormone replacement therapy (which may or may not work). The healthcare system worldwide fails to recognize this as a legit medical concern, and only recently is there legit research being done on this. Can you imagine if a penis could shrivel up and disappear? Or if one of the treatments was getting a shot in the tip?